Gugu Room

Everything here is Awesome!!! Nine of my friends and I had the Kamayan dinner. The food and presentation were excellent! Kudos to the chefs! We had the pansit, adobo ribs, fried pompano, beef skewers, ensalada, lechon porchetta, snow crabs, lumpia, garlic rice. Vanessa and Cece were Phenomenal!! The cocktails were so good...I lost count how many I had of the Rizal Highball. Everyone loved the Kalamansi Margaritas too. Really awesome experience here!! My favorite part is that everyone gets to take home some baon...love it! A++++! Thank you, Gugu Room and team! Galing!

Had the beef sinagang, Gugu (Bicol) express, and Bagnet Kare kare. All were incredible, dare I say better than my Filipino mother’s. Espresso martini and Manila mule were also delicious. Great service. Really awesome DJ started playing around 10. Overall AMAZING!!!! 10/10

Excellent food and and great service

Came here twice, and loved it both times. The dishes we ordered were Liempo / Pork skewers (least favorite), sizzling buffalo steak with bone marrow, bone marrow salpicao, miso cod, truffle mushroom tofu sig, and the Gugu express. Favorite dishes were sizzling buffalo steak and bone marrow salpicao. Both of their marrow dishes are absolutely delicious. Also recommend the Gugu express for vegetables.

GUGU Room after some friends recommended it and I really enjoyed it For drinks I tried the GUGU MIDORI SOUR (decent) and the SPICY YUZU GINGER (MOCKTAIL VERSION) (really good flavor and a nice ginger kick. Surprinsingly, I actually liked better the non-alcoholic drink. For starters we ordered: TAKOYAKI (4 small balls of takoyaki with good flavor but little octopus meat inside), KUSHIYAKI SAMPLER (6 different skewers of salmon, longaniza, liempo (pork belly), shrimp, rib eye, and chicken). I personally liked better the liempo and the rib eye but all skewers had the same sauce so taste quite similar. BLISTERED SHISHITO PEPPERS (perfectly cooked and salted, exactly what you would expect from some shishito peppers). Then as entree had the KAMPAI STEAK RICE which is a steak fried rice, with Japanese soy, wagyu fat, garlic and onion topped with seaweed salad and egg sunny side up. (This dish was my favourite, I would not have thought the seaweed would combine that well with the rice, it also came with ginger with gave it a fresh touch but the egg seem more like a soft boiled egg than a sunny side up, it was much less cooked) I will go back to try more dishes! ESPAÑOL: Vine a gugu room después de que unos amigos me lo recomendaran y realmente lo disfruté. Para beber probé el GUGU MIDORI SOUR (decente) y el SPICY YUZU GINGER (VERSIÓN MOCKTAIL) (muy buen sabor y un agradable toque de jengibre. Sorprendentemente, me gustó más la bebida sin alcohol. De aperitivos: TAKOYAKI (4 bolitas de takoyaki con buen sabor pero poca carne de pulpo por dentro), KUSHIYAKI variado (6 brochetas diferentes de salmón, longaniza, liempo, camarones, ternera y pollo). Personalmente me gustó más el liempo y la ternera, pero todas las brochetas tenían la misma salsa, por lo que tenían un sabor bastante similar. SHISHITO PEPPERS (perfectamente cocinados y salados, exactamente lo que esperarías de este plato). Luego, como plato principal, el KAMPAI STEAK RICE, que es un bistec con arroz frito, salsa de soja, grasa wagyu, ajo y cebolla, cubierto con ensalada de algas y huevo con el lado soleado hacia arriba. (Este plato era mi favorito, no me habría imaginado que las algas combinaran tan bien con el arroz y venía también con jengibre que dio un toque refrescante aunque el huevo parece más un huevo pasado por agua que uno frito, estaba mucho menos cocido) Volveré a probar más platos!

Tried the Kamayan feast. Food was great. Service was exceptional, especially for large parties. Front of house was also extremely helpful.

Skewer and ribs were okay but not great, but not much variety and quantity. Fish had lots of bones which is fine. Essentially, each person had one rib, one skewer, one piece of shrimp, rice, and a bit of fish (most people weren’t full). Definitely felt like there should be more food given the price. I’ve had Kamayan before at other places which was much better and cheaper, and gave more food and variety.

An interesting twist to elevate and evolve Filipino food. Some dishes were top notch, straight up deliciousness, while other dishes were lacking in quality. Let’s start with their drinks. They have a nice happy hour with $10 sangria and some cocktail options. I enjoyed the calamansi margarita. It was sweet, sour, spicy and strong. The ube cocktail, not a part of their happy hour, was like an ube milkshake - so tasty. Now the food. I was with a group of friends so we got to sample a few dishes. The skewer sampler was good. The sauce and the way the meats were cooked were perfect. The nori spam fries was a little disappointing and gimmicky. It was literally just spam cut in the shape of fries. There wasn’t any change in the taste of a regular spam. The nori truffle fries weren’t anything too special. It was tasty, but nothing new. The beef bone marrow salpicao was chef’s kiss delicious. The soft shell crab palabok was probably my favorite dish. The palabok was traditional but the fried soft shell crab added a salty, briney, crispy addition to a very traditional dish. I plan to order this every time I’m here with a group of people. The biggest disappointment for me was the bagnet kare kare which is a traditional kare kare sauce (fantastic) but with a crispy pork belly instead of a stewed oxtail. The pork to me was chewy and dry. It was either overcooked or stale because it also had a strange taste. A couple of the dishes were real knockouts so I’m interested in tasting a few of the other dishes on the menu. I’d love to try the short rib kare kare, the sinigang, and the bulalo next time. The staff was very nice. The bartender makes killer drinks. The inside has a dark and sexy but casual vibe. As a filipino, I love supporting filipino businesses. Also as a filipino, I’m a purist when it comes to filipino food, so I’m always a little reluctant trying filipino fusion or modern-takes to filipino cuisine, but this restaurant had plenty of dishes where I tasted both nostalgia and innovation, so I absolutely plan to come back to check out the other dishes.

Was very disappointed by the meal here. For drinks, we got the midori sour and wasabi margarita which were both not very good. We ordered the rock shrimp tempura which was not rock shrimp (just some regular shrimp), the skewer platter which all tasted the same because they were all basted in the same sauce, and the bulalo which they made more “fun” excuse they torch the bone marrow tableside but otherwise was pretty unremarkable too. Had higher hopes for this Filipino place - which I think would be better served being solely Filipino and not some weird Filipino-Japanese mix.

• midori sour - delicious. • rizal highball - stupendously strong. we requested more syrup to be added but each sip still felt like a car crash. it’s worth your buck but it’s not for me. • sampler platter - liempo: the best outta the bunch while the rest were forgettable for its price. compared to the kanto flavors that i long for, this was a letdown. • spicy yuzo adobo ribs - my partner actually asked for the spicy sizzling chicken adobo. i’m not sure how it even got mixed up but we were far too hungry to care. it was tender and moderately seasoned. • soft shell crab aligue palabok - i don’t have much to say other than you can get this at jollibee for less. the crab was good but again, nothing exceptional. notes: the menu delivered an elevated experience that harmonized japanese and filipino inspiration but it lacked an edge that separated them from the rest of fusion restaurants. however, they nailed the vibes. this place is undeniably magnetic, oozing romance and secrecy. we went here around 10pm and the music is far too loud for dates where you actually want to converse but vibes are vibes. overall, the food was lackluster but the scene is something that you might want to check out.